Page 2 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

I only know this because Guardian Asa told me that story recently, while slicing my skin in punishment for allowing myself to get hit during training.

She must have heard it from her predecessors.

She laughed, saying the words. Her twisted amusement felt like a poisoned cloud around me, and it was the first and only time I ever wished someone would die.

“No” I say, honestly. “I’m not afraid of death.

Not if you’re the one killing me.” She will make it quick.

I trust her. “Are you afraid of being alone?” I counter.

When she wins, she will be an only child.

She will eventually be ruler. She won’t be allowed to marry.

Love, and everything that comes with it, are strictly forbidden.

Laila looks pensive. Her curiosity is like a circling dragonfly. Then, I feel amusement, warm like a rare pocket of sunlight.

“No,” she finally says. “A ruler is meant to be lonely. There’s only room for one on a throne.”

The words could be spoken directly from our father’s mouth. They probably were. He spends more time with Laila than anyone else. The Gauntlet, I think, is just for show this time. All of us—including our father—know who is going to win.

And Laila is right. Rulers are meant to be alone forever.

It’s a relief that I’ll never know what that’s like.

The stars glitter above us. Some shoot away, in spirals. It almost looks like a message from the gods. I wonder what they’re saying.

Some of them rain down, and I wonder if they land somewhere. Laila and I both sit up, watching.

“Do you know where that is? Where they’re going?” she whispers, pointing at the sea.

I can’t see it from here, but I know what she’s talking about. Atlas, a small isle off the northernmost coast, made up of crushed, lustrous rocks. It is a place of mystery. I nod.

“There is a powerful diamond up there,” she says, eyes bright with excitement.

I only overhear through the walls, on occasion, when I sit close enough to the door, and put my ear to the keyhole.

Laila hears everything . Being able to hide up in the rafters and listen is one of the best parts of her flair, in my opinion.

“Really?”

She nods, grinning, pleased at herself for knowing something I don’t. “They say Cronan hid it.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, but everyone wants it. Father is determined to claim it but so far has failed. Can you believe it?” Her smile widens. “I’m going to get it one day. It has a name, you know.”

“What’s its name?”

“Infinite.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

Her pride is thick around her, cloudlike. “It’s the greatest number in the world. It means ... everything . At the same time. Everywhere .”

Everything ... at the same time ... everywhere.

“One day, my power will be infinite,” she says proudly. “I’ll have the stone, and no one will be able to stop me. Even if Father decides to start punishing me, he won’t be able to.”

Her eyes are alight, hungry, and I can’t imagine wanting anything that much.

“It will be,” I say, staring back up at the stars. I wonder what they see from up there. The stars must know everything, even more than Laila. Every secret, every edge of this world that no one has ever explored.

I envy them .

We sit and watch for so long that Laila falls asleep, right in the snow. Her brow isn’t furrowed. She isn’t frowning. No ... she looks peaceful. I feel a pang of crushing sadness that, one day, she will be responsible for an entire realm.

If I could, I would save her from all this, from this fate ... but it’s what she wants. It’s what she’s always wanted.

When the last of the stars finally gutters out, and the night sky returns to its familiar muted gleam, I carry her home.

Somehow, I get over the wall with both of us.

I do my best to hide behind the statues, to move out of sight of the many windows.

But the extra weight is what makes my boots crunch loudly against the frozen grass.

When I turn the corner of the palace, toward the back door, Guardian Asa is waiting for us.

I freeze and whirl back around. My panic produces a single shadow, enough to cover us, but Guardian Asa must sense it, because my shadow is ripped away, as if by a hand. Her hand.

I dig my fingers into Laila’s arm. She’s awake and taking off into the sky in a moment.

Asa must know the bat is her, but she doesn’t make a move to reel Laila back. No, if anything, being able to escape will be rewarded.

And my inability to flee will be punished.

“This is the third time, Grimshaw,” Guardian Asa says, and then she takes my arm so sharply, her nails draw blood. I jump, and she only sinks them deeper into my skin. “Useless boy. Corrupting your sister, future ruler of Nightshade.” As if it wasn’t Laila’s idea.

I don’t say a word. I never do.

“For this ... for this you will pay.”

For hours, Guardian Asa slices her shadows against my skin, opening her own recent cuts, deepening the layers of scars.

But a calm washes over me as I think about that swirl of stars, and, for the first time, I barely feel the slashing of her shadows. I barely notice my warm blood, sliding down my frost-chilled back.

It’s the first time I don’t yell in pain, and that only makes her slice deeper, until I practically pass out from the blood loss.

By the time Guardian Asa is finished with me, I have to be all but carried back to my room by three guardians. I’m barely clinging to consciousness. I can feel their irritation, their disgust.

They hope I die.

I hope I live. For that string of stars has shown me that beauty exists. How much more is waiting beyond these palace walls? Infinite wonders , I think. There is a world out there, and those stars ... they felt like a promise of better days to come.

The guardians leave me on the cold stone floor, and I’m still thinking about that patch of stars as the darkness rushes in.

My eyes blink open once. Twice.

It’s still night. I’m still alive.

Laila .

Is she hurt? The guardians have never punished her, but what if this time they make an exception?

It will earn me more punishment, but I don’t care. My arms tremble as I lift myself off the floor. I cry out, my back raw, the skin peeled away. My shirt’s fabric scrubs against the bare muscle. I see black, but steady myself.

I manage to make it to the door and freeze when I turn the handle.

They’ve locked me in.

I follow the rules, generally, unless Laila asks me to break them. I’m not with her all the time, though. In training, we are on different parts of the mountain. The warriors follow mandates, and so do I.

But knowing I have so little time ... knowing I can count on one hand the number of years left before the Gauntlet ...

I shake the handle, but it doesn’t give. I try to kick it down, but my diminished strength is nothing compared to thousand-year-old wood.

I try to summon shadows. In my desperation, they flicker to life. They inch forward before disappearing completely.

I sink to the floor, and—

I can’t breathe. I can’t—I can’t breathe .

No. The opposite. I’m breathing so much that I can’t get a full breath in my lungs. I clutch at my throat, try to make a sound, but nothing comes out.

Out .

I need to get out. I need to be out of this room they’ve locked me in. I need to be free , finally, please. Please, please, let me out .

LET ME OUT .

I fall to my knees and barely feel the stone beneath me. I bang on the room’s narrow windows, then scrape at the glass, as if I could claw myself out—

And then I’m clutching sand.

The soft hiss of melting waves sounds to my right. Silvery sea foam fizzes around my knees.

Slowly, I look up, and see the Nightshade castle, the one my father resides in, towering above like a beast.

Impossible.

How?

This must be a dream ... but it isn’t. My back still burns. My eyes are blinking over and over and nothing is changing.

I’m really here. One moment I was wishing I could be out of that castle ...

The next, I was on the other side of Nightshade. Dread falls through my stomach.

Impossible . I can barely control shadows, I definitely don’t—

I don’t have a flair.

I don’t have this flair . I can’t.

This is what I wanted. To be free. To be out . I should feel relief, cold as the sea pooling around me, but all I feel is the sharp poison of panic.

Because I know what this means.

No. I look up at the castle. It’s perched precariously on the cliff, like a creature waiting to strike.

He can’t know.

Father can’t know I can do this.

I have to get home. But how?

How did I get here in the first place?

Sunrise bleeds along the horizon, and all I can think about is Guardian Asa opening my room to find it empty.

The thought of her face brings me a twisted joy. And a pleasant idea pierces my panic.

What if I didn’t go back? What if this is ... a gift? They can’t punish me if they can’t find me ...

Hope has me finally taking a full breath, filling my lungs with salt and brine and morning breeze.

I could do it. I could run away. The people of Nightshade don’t know what I look like .

.. they’ll think I’m just a normal boy.

And then ... maybe I can go farther. To places most Nightshades haven’t even dreamed of.

In seconds, I plan out a whole life, one that is filled with quiet moments, honest work, and maybe a family. One that doesn’t have to kill each other for power.

But then, as always, my thoughts return to my father.

He won’t care that I’m gone. He practically doesn’t even know I’m alive. But when he realizes I was able to escape a locked room ...

Only one other person in our history has had this ability. Cronan Malvere. The founder of Nightshade. And if Father finds out I can portal ...

He will want me to be heir.

An image of Laila, dead, among the rest of my siblings flashes through my mind, and I shake my head, banishing it.

No. No one will know. It will be a secret, and Laila will kill me without knowing. Never knowing.

My ribs feel like they’re closing in on themselves. My eyes burn. I have this chance ... this one chance to be free ... And I’m letting it go.

For her, I will return to the castle. I will figure out how to get back.

The sun is steadily rising. The guardians will be at my door soon.

I need to get back .

I claw at the sand, thinking about the castle. Pleading with the blazing sun and cold brush of sea to please. PLEASE—

It takes hours, but it is that surge of care for her that finally gets me back in my room. The door is still locked, from the outside. They haven’t tried to come in yet.

I fall forward in relief, shaking from the cold of the ocean, finally feeling the sharp sting of salt in my wounds.

Relief smothers it all.

I’m here.

Laila will be safe.

No one notices the sand in my shoes.